A hull section typical of the prior art “all steel” river barges is shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings. The hull section has a double hull wall construction in which inner hull walls 100 define an inner side shell and a bottom of a hold 5 and outer hull walls 110 define an outer side shell and a bottom i.e. the shape of the outer hull. Both inner and outer walls are made of 8 to 15 mm thick steel plates. As can be seen in FIG. 1, a plurality of (floor) transverse girders 120 are positioned approximately 600 mm apart between the bottom inner hull walls 100 and the bottom the outer hull walls 110. A large number of transverse girders 120 are required because of the relative flexibility of the steel plates of the hull walls 100, 110. The cavity (inner space) within the side shell structure (i.e. the side shells of the inner and outer hull walls 100, 110) contains a plurality of channel beams 130 and columns 140 to provide the required stiffness.
“All steel” river barges such as that illustrated in FIG. 1 are relatively complex structures with a large number of transverse girders 120, cavity stiffening elements 130,140 and bulb flat or angle plate stiffeners 115, all required to stiffen and strengthen the plating and hull structure for the design loads.